


and in the darkness: light

by guardyanangel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Healing, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Scarification, Torture, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardyanangel/pseuds/guardyanangel
Summary: Luna Lovegood has the words "blood traitor" carved into both arms. | Luna, during the war and after: A story of darkness and hope.





	

Luna Lovegood has the words _"blood traitor"_ carved into both arms.

~*~

Bellatrix Lestrange has never needed a reason but boredom, and so despite the fact that it's clear Luna knows nothing about the whereabouts of Harry Potter, she falls beneath the Death Eater's knife and wand. 

Over the course of the months Luna is in Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix Lestrange is bored very often.

The first time, it's just the Cruciatus curse. By now, after a semester with the Carrows, this is nothing new. This is survivable. Tolerable, even. Luna screams herself hoarse and lets herself retreat to her own mind when it gets to be too much to bear. Like the Carrows, Bellatrix finds her new silence dull and unexciting. Luna is sent back down to the dark of the cellar to ~~wait~~ recover until the next time she's taken up.

(Luna Lovegood has always been a child of nature and light and life. She has never been afraid of the dark, because fear of the dark is usually just fear of the unknown, and to Luna, nothing is unknown. Only unmet.

Pulling herself out of the quiet of her mind to greet darkness and wet and cold, she starts to be afraid. But she sings to Mr. Ollivander, anyways, because even at the end of all things there is hope.)

~*~

Bellatrix breaks out the knife after that first session, stabbing and marking and jeering in between curses. Luna cries, and screams, and breathes. It starts taking longer to successfully disengage herself from the torture. It starts taking longer for her to come back out, when it's over.

The first time Bellatrix carves the words _"blood traitor"_ into her arms is the first time Luna is present for the entire session. It is the first time she sees the Death Eater smile. It is the first time the woman waves her wand and Luna does not feel pain. Looks down to realize the bloody wounds on her arm are pulling themselves back together again, and weeps.

(That night, she does not sing.)

~*~

It goes on like that, more times than she can count: Bellatrix carves the words into Luna's arms. Bellatrix heals the wounds before they can so much as scab. It begins all over again next time. Eventually, Luna is able to seek the quiet of her own mind again as it happens. Eventually, the injuries happen too often and too deeply to heal despite Bellatrix's efforts. 

After it becomes clear the scars are going to remain scars, the older witch seems uninterested in revisiting old styles. Luna isn't pulled up to the upper floors of the Manor for a while.

(She doesn't dare hope it's over. She knows the Death Eater is just planning another way. But it's enough time for Luna to feel a little less like she's about to crack. She switches from songs to telling stories to Mr. Ollivander, and if she keeps her eyes shut as she speaks, she can imagine there's light.)

~*~

Harry Potter comes. Dobby saves them from the darkness. Luna Lovegood breathes in an air laden with salt and sees the stars, and does not stop crying until Fleur plies her with tea and Harry calls for someone to help the house elf that had rescued them all.

~*~

Shell Cottage is airy and bright, and everything Luna needs after the Manor. She sleeps with a single light in her room, always. She muffles her screams when she wakes to try not to break the house's tentative peace. She walks along the beach for hours on end, reveling in the simple fact that she can.

They ask her if she's hurt; if there's anything to attend to. She shakes her head: There are no physical wounds left to heal, and the ones on her heart will do the same in time.

Mr. Ollivander sends her a new wand made from driftwood but shaped like a flower, for hope and new life. He's rubbed the wood with something so that if ever she is again left in darkness, all she needs to is speak a word to it and her wand itself will shine. 

She practices along the beach,  _Wingardium Leviosa_ just like her first year, and as the shells float into the air she feels something aching and sad within her crack and melt into something akin to peace.

~*~

When the war is over, the Healers make their rounds. Luna is fussed at over her sprained ankle and the gashes and burns from spells that made a hit or narrowly missed. One of her shirtsleeves was neatly cut off during the fighting, and the scar on her arm is there for everyone to see for the first time.

The Healer, voice and eyes soft, says she's skilled enough to make it disappear, if she wants it. Luna refuses.

(Hermione does, as well, because they are both unashamed of what they've had to do in this war. But  _Mudblood_ has only ever been a slur, for Hermione, whereas for Luna  _blood traitor_ starts to feel like a badge of pride. It takes Hermione time to wear short sleeves without nerves. Luna begins to the summer after the war ends. If Harry has to bear the scar that marks him a savior, Luna will wear with pride the one that marks her a soldier.)

~*~

She goes back to Hogwarts for her last year. It is strange and healing still, but nothing can be as terrible as the year before was. Still, the members of Dumbledore's Army that return sleep in the Room of Requirement more often than not. Their Housemates and professors turn a blind eye. They understand.

Some nights, someone wakes up screaming and everyone is instantly on high alert. Some nights, someone starts crying and everyone else will either do the same or rush to comfort. Some nights, it feels like it hasn't ended at all. 

(Some nights, Luna's scars feel like they're open wounds. Wars don't ever end, not really. Not so long as their survivors live.)

But they make their way through. The room is never void of light. The windows show scenes of nature and peace. Luna sings, and tells stories, and laughs, and sometimes the others manage the same. They will never be who they were, but they can make the most out of who they are now. It's more of a future than they thought they'd have.

~*~

Despite the healing, Luna leaves the United Kingdom a month after she graduates from Hogwarts. She stays away for almost a year, first following the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and then wherever her heart takes her. She sleeps with a light on, and when there isn't one, she lets her wand glow. 

Somewhere over the course of the year, she stops having quite so many nightmares. Somewhere over the course of the year, it feels less like she's running away from something and more like she's running towards something new. 

In China, she meets a magizoologist-turned-professor, and knows what the path forward is.

~*~

She comes back to England with something easier in her. She enrolls into university to study magizoology. She looks in the mirror and realizes one day that she's smiling; that there's a spark in her eyes she thought died after the Manor. One morning, after falling asleep on her textbooks, she realizes she slept without a light and didn't have a single nightmare.

It's then that she knows--  _really_ Knows, and not just optimistically hopes as she has since the war ended-- that she's going to be okay.

~*~

The years pass. Luna becomes a well-known magizoologist, chasing creatures that may be dream and may not be. She falls in love with a man, and has twins. She sleeps most nights with the lights off. She breathes through the days when her scars hurt. She sings, and tells stories, and she's happy.

Luna Lovegood has the words _"blood traitor"_ carved into both arms. One day, her children will be old enough to ask, and she'll start to tell them the story of war and love and sacrifice and above all, hope. She'll only cry a little. She'll sing them a lullaby when she's done.

That night, she'll go to bed with the lights off and her love at her side, and fall asleep knowing all is well.


End file.
